Well, it's better late than never. Verizon flipped the
switch on its LTE network back
in early December. Now, AT&T is strolling along with its competing LTE
network, which officially get the green light on September 18 according
to FierceWireless.

AT&T CFO John Stephens confirmed the rollout, and as
previously stated, the five debut markets will be Atlanta, Chicago, Dallas,
Houston, and San Antonio. AT&T hopes to expand to 15 markets and reach 70
million U.S. residents by the end of 2011.

For comparison's sake, Verizon's LTE network currently
reaches 160 million Americans (185 million by year's end) and is available in
143 markets (175 by year's end).

As we reported earlier in the month, AT&T has two
fresh LTE devices available for its rollout: the USBConnect Momentum 4G and
the Mobile Hotspot Elevate 4G. The older USBConnect Adrenaline received a
firmware update last month to make it compatible with AT&T's LTE network.

In addition to the Momentum 4G and Elevate 4G, AT&T
announced late last month that the HTC
Jetstream would also operate on its LTE network. The Jetstream is a
10.1" Android (Honeycomb) tablet that features a 1.5GHz dual-core
processor and features an 8mp camera will dual-LED flash.

The Jetstream is priced at a whopping $699.99 with a
two-year contract.

One thing to keep in mind is that Apple's iPhone will be launching
sometime within the next month. The current iPhone 4 is still relegated to
3G data speeds while most of the competition has moved on to true 4G
(LTE/WiMAX) or faux-4G
(HSPA+). We're almost certain that the next generation iPhone will support
HSPA+ when it is announced, but we hope that LTE is in the cards as well.

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My wife and I were at the Sprint store the other day and a Father and his two kids walked out of the store with two phones and Sprint plan for the total of $3xx.

You can get phones for UNDER $50 if you sign up for 2 years of service. I have not paid over $50 yet!I have yet to understand the stupidness of people to willingly pay for what they don't have to. But then again there's Apple's PC and laptops!

The 50 dollar and under phones are pretty crappy. If you have the money why is spending more on a phone stupid? What's an intelligent way to spend? Maybe the guy has a comfortable amount of money saved and can easily afford to blow money on electronics. You call someone stupid for not acting like you, but does that mean the guy should also go watch what others are spending and judge them quietly just like you?

I got an 1800wmh battery for my phone as well. It’s the same size as the 1650mwh battery that comes standard. You can get 2 for $25 and a charger on Amazon. Honestly I don't think I'd want a bigger screen the phones already about the max width that is comfortable in my pocket.

It's similar pricing to the Samsung Galaxy 10.1 on Verizon, but it has a 1.5ghz dual core processor compared to it's 1ghz dual core. Plus the camera is better. AT&T also offers the Acer tablet for about $330 with contract - it's not like you don't have cheaper choices. I'm sure if HTC could manufacture the Jetstream for $300, then AT&T would offer it for much less. You act like the carrier dictates the price simply based on how much they can extort out of customers and cost of materials have nothing to do with it.

As far as the TMobile purchase, people who know nothing of the regulatory processes related to cell phone towers are primarily the ones that think that a wireless carrier can just pop up a tower wherever there is poor coverage in a month or two. To sit there and go, well AT&T just isn't spending enough money on new towers know nothing of the process. I know of one tower that TMobile waited 2 years on approval just to add another antenna on. An antenna on an already existing tower! It's not a matter of capital -- what AT&T is trying to do with the merger is to bypass the years of local government processes that it would take to build the thousands of towers to serve their customers the merger would give them, basically overnight.

You are 100% wrong about HTC having anything to do with the outrageous price AT&T is charging for the tablet. The reason the price is so high is because AT&T is raping the sh!t out of customers who want 4G and because AT&T figures there are enough suckers out there to pay up.

If anyone is doing the raping...it would be HTC. Check out the link above and read about how implementing LTE would cost Apple about 23% more to put LTE into their cellphone. Do you think there is a substantial difference in the extra cost LTE brings to a tablet?

And you're ignoring the fact that wireless carriers stand to benefit more if a tablet like the Jetstream is $100...$200...because that means mass adoption...more data $$$ on a monthly basis. Carriers don't care about the equipment unless it's a matter of an exclusive model that will drive subscribers to that particular carrier. I'm sure Verizon and AT&T would LOVE to sell the Galaxy Tab and Honeycomb for $99.99.